Supporting Cyclic Garbage Collection

Python’s support for detecting and collecting garbage which involves circular references requires support from object types which are “containers” for other objects which may also be containers. Types which do not store references to other objects, or which only store references to atomic types (such as numbers or strings), do not need to provide any explicit support for garbage collection.

To create a container type, the tp_flags field of the type object must include the Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC and provide an implementation of the tp_traverse handler. If instances of the type are mutable, a tp_clear implementation must also be provided.

Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC

Objects with a type with this flag set must conform with the rules documented here. For convenience these objects will be referred to as container objects.

Constructors for container types must conform to two rules:

  1. The memory for the object must be allocated using PyObject_GC_New or PyObject_GC_NewVar.

  2. Once all the fields which may contain references to other containers are initialized, it must call PyObject_GC_Track().

Similarly, the deallocator for the object must conform to a similar pair of rules:

  1. Before fields which refer to other containers are invalidated, PyObject_GC_UnTrack() must be called.

  2. The object’s memory must be deallocated using PyObject_GC_Del().

    Warning

    If a type adds the Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC, then it must implement at least a tp_traverse handler or explicitly use one from its subclass or subclasses.

    When calling PyType_Ready() or some of the APIs that indirectly call it like PyType_FromSpecWithBases() or PyType_FromSpec() the interpreter will automatically populate the tp_flags, tp_traverse and tp_clear fields if the type inherits from a class that implements the garbage collector protocol and the child class does not include the Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC flag.

PyObject_GC_New(TYPE, typeobj)

Analogous to PyObject_New but for container objects with the Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC flag set.

PyObject_GC_NewVar(TYPE, typeobj, size)

Analogous to PyObject_NewVar but for container objects with the Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC flag set.

PyObject *PyUnstable_Object_GC_NewWithExtraData(PyTypeObject *type, size_t extra_size)
This is Unstable API. It may change without warning in minor releases.

Analogous to PyObject_GC_New but allocates extra_size bytes at the end of the object (at offset tp_basicsize). The allocated memory is initialized to zeros, except for the Python object header.

The extra data will be deallocated with the object, but otherwise it is not managed by Python.

Warning

The function is marked as unstable because the final mechanism for reserving extra data after an instance is not yet decided. For allocating a variable number of fields, prefer using PyVarObject and tp_itemsize instead.

New in version 3.12.

TYPE *PyObject_GC_Resize(TYPE, PyVarObject *op, Py_ssize_t newsize)

Resize an object allocated by PyObject_NewVar. Returns the resized object or NULL on failure. op must not be tracked by the collector yet.

void PyObject_GC_Track(PyObject *op)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Adds the object op to the set of container objects tracked by the collector. The collector can run at unexpected times so objects must be valid while being tracked. This should be called once all the fields followed by the tp_traverse handler become valid, usually near the end of the constructor.

int PyObject_IS_GC(PyObject *obj)

Returns non-zero if the object implements the garbage collector protocol, otherwise returns 0.

The object cannot be tracked by the garbage collector if this function returns 0.

int PyObject_GC_IsTracked(PyObject *op)
Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.9.

Returns 1 if the object type of op implements the GC protocol and op is being currently tracked by the garbage collector and 0 otherwise.

This is analogous to the Python function gc.is_tracked().

New in version 3.9.

int PyObject_GC_IsFinalized(PyObject *op)
Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.9.

Returns 1 if the object type of op implements the GC protocol and op has been already finalized by the garbage collector and 0 otherwise.

This is analogous to the Python function gc.is_finalized().

New in version 3.9.

void PyObject_GC_Del(void *op)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Releases memory allocated to an object using PyObject_GC_New or PyObject_GC_NewVar.

void PyObject_GC_UnTrack(void *op)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Remove the object op from the set of container objects tracked by the collector. Note that PyObject_GC_Track() can be called again on this object to add it back to the set of tracked objects. The deallocator (tp_dealloc handler) should call this for the object before any of the fields used by the tp_traverse handler become invalid.

Changed in version 3.8: The _PyObject_GC_TRACK() and _PyObject_GC_UNTRACK() macros have been removed from the public C API.

The tp_traverse handler accepts a function parameter of this type:

typedef int (*visitproc)(PyObject *object, void *arg)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Type of the visitor function passed to the tp_traverse handler. The function should be called with an object to traverse as object and the third parameter to the tp_traverse handler as arg. The Python core uses several visitor functions to implement cyclic garbage detection; it’s not expected that users will need to write their own visitor functions.

The tp_traverse handler must have the following type:

typedef int (*traverseproc)(PyObject *self, visitproc visit, void *arg)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Traversal function for a container object. Implementations must call the visit function for each object directly contained by self, with the parameters to visit being the contained object and the arg value passed to the handler. The visit function must not be called with a NULL object argument. If visit returns a non-zero value that value should be returned immediately.

To simplify writing tp_traverse handlers, a Py_VISIT() macro is provided. In order to use this macro, the tp_traverse implementation must name its arguments exactly visit and arg:

void Py_VISIT(PyObject *o)

If o is not NULL, call the visit callback, with arguments o and arg. If visit returns a non-zero value, then return it. Using this macro, tp_traverse handlers look like:

static int
my_traverse(Noddy *self, visitproc visit, void *arg)
{
    Py_VISIT(self->foo);
    Py_VISIT(self->bar);
    return 0;
}

The tp_clear handler must be of the inquiry type, or NULL if the object is immutable.

typedef int (*inquiry)(PyObject *self)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Drop references that may have created reference cycles. Immutable objects do not have to define this method since they can never directly create reference cycles. Note that the object must still be valid after calling this method (don’t just call Py_DECREF() on a reference). The collector will call this method if it detects that this object is involved in a reference cycle.

Controlling the Garbage Collector State

The C-API provides the following functions for controlling garbage collection runs.

Py_ssize_t PyGC_Collect(void)
Part of the Stable ABI.

Perform a full garbage collection, if the garbage collector is enabled. (Note that gc.collect() runs it unconditionally.)

Returns the number of collected + unreachable objects which cannot be collected. If the garbage collector is disabled or already collecting, returns 0 immediately. Errors during garbage collection are passed to sys.unraisablehook. This function does not raise exceptions.

int PyGC_Enable(void)
Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.10.

Enable the garbage collector: similar to gc.enable(). Returns the previous state, 0 for disabled and 1 for enabled.

New in version 3.10.

int PyGC_Disable(void)
Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.10.

Disable the garbage collector: similar to gc.disable(). Returns the previous state, 0 for disabled and 1 for enabled.

New in version 3.10.

int PyGC_IsEnabled(void)
Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.10.

Query the state of the garbage collector: similar to gc.isenabled(). Returns the current state, 0 for disabled and 1 for enabled.

New in version 3.10.

Querying Garbage Collector State

The C-API provides the following interface for querying information about the garbage collector.

void PyUnstable_GC_VisitObjects(gcvisitobjects_t callback, void *arg)
This is Unstable API. It may change without warning in minor releases.

Run supplied callback on all live GC-capable objects. arg is passed through to all invocations of callback.

Warning

If new objects are (de)allocated by the callback it is undefined if they will be visited.

Garbage collection is disabled during operation. Explicitly running a collection in the callback may lead to undefined behaviour e.g. visiting the same objects multiple times or not at all.

New in version 3.12.

typedef int (*gcvisitobjects_t)(PyObject *object, void *arg)

Type of the visitor function to be passed to PyUnstable_GC_VisitObjects(). arg is the same as the arg passed to PyUnstable_GC_VisitObjects. Return 0 to continue iteration, return 1 to stop iteration. Other return values are reserved for now so behavior on returning anything else is undefined.

New in version 3.12.